Century

Call Century anything you want — heartbreaking, amazing, stimulating — but don’t call it cliché: it does open, after all, with a spectral Nazi haunting a woman’s sleep. It scarcely gets less surprising from there, as we soon realize that Herr Himmler actually visits Jane Seymour in a novel being written in 1983 by a man who knows her. In the following pages, Century traces the life of Jane and her ancestors back to 1893 in four chapters told from the perspective of a different person close to her. As if that weren’t enough, Smith then abruptly shifts to two final chapters reminiscent of Henry James, in which an American named Kenniston Thorson discourses on art, life, and philosophy while adventuring through in Paris in 1892 and Germany in 1923. What’s going on here? Plot-conscious readers will note that Thorson is briefly connected to Jane’s mother, but the deeper connections between Jane’s chapters and Thorson’s are left wonderfully enigmatic. That mysteriousness is precisely the source of Century‘s power. A book that feels far more capacious than its short span would imply, Century draws you in because it makes you, as the author puts it, turn “its subject round and round as a sculptor considers his piece.” It is a moving look at womanhood, an inquiry into what the modern world really is, and, most of all, a deep, enchanting, occasionally melancholy tour through the 20th century. It’s also a chance to get to know one of the most innovative and under-appreciated Canadian authors working today.